


Just Keep Coming Around

by spacetrek



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, a couple of 20-something heroes having a talk about friendship, ana this one is entirely your fault and therefore dedicated to you, and it only took them a hundred-odd arguments to get here, feat. my usual habit of beating semicolons to death with mallet, good for you guys, you know why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 05:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19900918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacetrek/pseuds/spacetrek
Summary: Bruce Wayne doesn't have a lot of friends.  Batman has even fewer.Maybe it's about time they both made one.





	Just Keep Coming Around

There are a lot of people in Bruce Wayne’s life.

Socialites, celebrities, business tycoons. He’s familiar with the sickly-sweet push-pull of these interactions: a smile, empty; a proffered hand or arm, habit; a conversation, meaningless; over and over and over. He understands this.

There are fewer people in Batman’s life.

Criminals, mostly. Gordon and a few of GCPD, occasionally. A smile, sharp; a proffered fist or weapon, habit; a one-sided attempt at conversation, meaningless. He understands this, too.

There aren’t many people who know Bruce outside of these roles.

Fewer still who know both at the same time.

His family, of course. Alfred. Dick.

He knows Alfred cares for him. Duty is there, of course, wound through everything Alfred does, but not obligation. Not servitude. This is something Alfred has chosen of his own free will. He has seen the worst of Bruce’s life—both of them—and he has stayed. Bruce knows what this means. He doesn’t question it, merely tries to show Alfred any way he can that he understands. That he appreciates. That he cares, too.

Dick is, perhaps, the giver of the most uncomplicated affection Bruce has received since his parents. Dick is more affectionate on his worst days than Bruce on his best, but Bruce knows what he means to Dick. He also knows that Dick could find a home and a family with someone better, someone steadier, but only he can give Dick Robin—an outlet for the _thing_ he knows lives somewhere under Dick’s easy smile and eager chatter, just as it lives under silk and kevlar suits in Bruce. He understands this, accepts it, does everything he can to keep Dick safe, keep him happy.

He knows—

He thinks—

He’s not sure. About Clark.

Clark baffles him. There is nothing more dangerous than a person whose motives you cannot comprehend, and this frustration only adds to the often combative nature of their—relationship.

It _is_ a relationship, though its parameters wobble and shift and sometimes disappear entirely, leaving Bruce with the feeling that he’s grasping for a safety rail that is no longer there.

Start with what you know. Make your way outward.

It’s a working relationship, certainly. They work together; it’s the simplest definition of the thing. They don’t always agree, but for all their contention, they tend to have exceptional results.

(And maybe—maybe Bruce doesn’t hate their arguments. He wouldn’t respect Superman so much if he rolled over every time the Bat snarled. That, and Clark is far sharper than people are inclined to give him credit for—even with all the posturing and raised voices, he can’t think of a time when he hasn’t come away from one of these fights with a new perspective, a better understanding of a serious situation.

Except for the quarrel they had about that book Clark was reading. And the one about what, exactly, constituted a sitcom. And—

Well. He’d get back to those).

So. Working.

But—there are other things, too.

Clark, arguing about the book he was reading; Bruce had only brought it up because he’d read it too, curious to see what could hold Superman’s attention. Clark, two minutes late for a planned stakeout because he’d stopped to get coffee for both of them. Clark, leaning on Bruce’s Jaguar in cheap plaid and worn jeans, explaining to an enraptured Dick how to catch a stubborn horse.

Bruce himself, getting sucked into a ferocious argument about a political thriller. Bruce drinking the too-sweet coffee on the silent justification that he was going to need the caffeine. Bruce, standing at the door of the Jaguar, knowing he should tell Clark to get his ass off Bruce’s $50,000 car and leave, but holding back, reluctant. 

Now—

Even now, Clark beside him, leaning backward off a snarling gargoyle at an angle that made his disregard for normal human things like gravity and physics especially evident. Clark saying, “If you’re planning to stick around all night until they show up, I could go and get some food. If you wanted.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You sure?” Clark tilts his head back to look at Bruce. Bruce still hasn’t gotten over how bright his eyes are, regardless of ambient light; he wonders if he ever _will_ get over it—the uneasy thrill that goes through him at such a blatant reminder of who and what Clark is. “I wouldn’t be long.” A flicker of a smile. “I could go to Thailand for actual Thai food and be back before you could hit the shop just around the corner.”

“I didn’t call you here for your culinary prowess.” Bruce still isn’t sure he wants Clark here at all; he knows that Clark’s search and surveillance capabilities are invaluable assets with how big he thinks this operation is likely to be, and with Mannheim involved it’s partially Clark’s business anyhow, but—

He’s just not sure.

It would be easier if Clark could stay still. It might remind him of Dick, except that Clark’s energy isn’t nervous or excited. It simply _is,_ as if the energy he caught from the sun during the day is spilling over at night.

He’s seriously rethinking the idea of having Clark fly to Thailand, if only for a few minutes of relative peace and quiet, when Clark tips his head back again, looking at him almost sideways and upside-down.

“What’s your favorite drink?”

Bruce mentally replays the question twice in his head and decides he must have misheard. “What?”

“Your favorite drink. What is it?” Clark shifts around so he can look at Bruce without craning his neck. 

The hell.

“Grand Marnier on the rocks,” Bruce says, mostly on autopilot, because doesn't know what possible reason Clark would have to ask him this question. _What does he want?_

Clark is smiling, but there’s something a little odd about it. “That’s your favorite?” His tone says that he knows it isn’t.

Bruce has never been exactly sure how much Superman can read into the automatic, uncontrollable tells of the human body, but this conversation is becoming enlightening in some very uncomfortable ways.

“Coffee,” he tries. Clark has seen him drink coffee before. He’s seen him drink it a lot.

“Mine is the mulled apple cider Pa would make every fall,” Clark says, like that’s any answer at all. He’s still _looking_ at Bruce like he expects something more, breath streaming in the cold November air.

Bruce is abruptly, absurdly angry. “What do you want from me?” Clark looks startled, but Bruce forges ahead. “You keep coming by, offering to get food, asking ridiculous questions and—and talking about _books._ I don’t even care about what you’re reading.”

Clark, damn him, just seems bewildered. “We’re friends, Bruce.”

“We’re coworkers,” Bruce snaps, automatic, vaguely noticing the slip in codenames but too preoccupied at the moment to bother.

And here it is, Clark’s chin lifting, his spine straightening—Superman making an appearance, Clark ready to argue. “We’re friends, for my part.”

“Why?” And oh, this is too much, too far, but Bruce is so tired of not understanding; he needs to understand. “You don’t want anything from me.”

Clark’s posture loosens: confusion. “I don’t—I’d like it if you answered me now and then, but—”

“No.” Bruce pushes that aside, irritated. “You don’t want Clark Kent to be famous, you're already in a committed relationship, you haven’t asked me to buy anything for you; you haven’t even accepted any _offers_ I made to buy you anything—what do you _want?_ ”

Clark’s had pulled back, startled, listening to Bruce’s spiel, but now he’s leaning forward again, earnest and strangely urgent. “Bruce,” he says, gentle, “I don’t want anything. 

“Everyone wants something.” He knows that; he understands that. Everybody has an angle.

“Okay, you’re right. I want to be friends.”

“For what reason?” Maybe rephrasing the question will get it through his invulnerable skull.

Clark looks like he can’t decide if he’s upset, irritated, or—fond?

Or something. Definitely not like Bruce has gotten through to him.

“For _you,_ you idiot.” Clark’s mouth twists into a self-depreciating facsimile of his usual smile. “God help me, Bruce—Batman—you’re the most aggravating person I know, but you’re also one of the best.” The smile disappears. Clark looks deadly serious as he adds, “You understand my—what I do. You know why I do it.” Quieter: “There aren’t a lot of people in this world who can do that. Acknowledge, maybe, but not understand.” A shrug. “I acknowledge and understand what you do, but not _you_.” A smile, real this time. “Not yet. So. I’m a reporter. I ask questions.” Clark leans back against the gargoyle again, shifting like he’s trying to get comfortable, like he’s planning to stay. “If you don’t want to answer, B, just say so. You don’t have to lie about it. I’m not gonna get mad.”

The silence stretches seconds and minutes after Clark’s speech, and Bruce almost wishes it were uncomfortable, just to have some reason to deny some part of it. 

Clark is—

He’s telling the truth. All of it. The truth, real and open and laid neatly at Bruce’s feet, for Bruce to do whatever he wants with it.

Bruce can kick it away, if he wants. Can step on or over it, ignore it, pretend it never happened. 

Or he can pick it up.

It’s up to him, all of it. This thing they have—this partnership—is his choice now.

Clark has already made his.

He doesn’t ask for much—has never asked for much—and Bruce—

He doesn’t understand, but he thinks—maybe he could.

“Hot chocolate.” Bruce is speaking so far under his breath that his state of the art security cameras couldn’t pick up the words.

He’s speaking to a man more sensitive than any security camera. 

Clark tilts his head anyway. “Excuse me?”

“My favorite drink. It’s hot chocolate.” Bruce fights not to look away from whatever reaction Clark is planning to have over this admission. “Alfred’s, specifically.”

Clark’s face lights up like Metropolis at Christmastime, and Bruce is very grateful the cowl hides most of his own face. “That’s—” Clark’s abject delight suddenly quiets, shifts to something softer, warmer. “That’s a really good favorite.”

The hell with it.

“If we take care of these gunrunners in a timely fashion,” Bruce says, gaze fixed on the warehouse below, “I’m sure I could convince Alfred to make it for us later tonight.”

It’s not perfect—there’s an ‘if,’ a ‘later’—but it’s better than a ‘no,’ more telling than a ‘never.’

From the flash of Clark’s smile in his peripheral vision, it might as well be a ‘yes.’

**Author's Note:**

> not sure how I feel about this one, but I have too many text conversations about these guys and this is the result.
> 
> title from "Whataya Want From Me?" by Adam Lambert


End file.
